BORO’S new target man Jeremie Aliadiere has set his sights high for the coming season.

The ambitious French frontman believes his new employers have the talent within the squad to target a top seven finish and potentially scrape into the European positions.

Former employers Arsenal may have slightly higher aims, with a top four finish mandatory.

But, having now had time to assess the quality in the Boro dressing room, Aliadiere is confident his new club can significantly improve on last season’s 12th place.

He told the Gazette: “We’ve got a target to do as well as we can and I think with the squad that we’ve got we can do well, we would like to finish as high as we can - top six, top seven - and maybe challenge for Europe and that’s what we want to do.

“We just want to play good football and do as well as we can - we’ll take it game by game.”

The Boro frontline has yet to bed down and the ongoing mystery of Yakubu’s future has still to be resolved.

Southgate likes the idea of using Tuncay in a wide role, where he can make runs into the box rather like Thierry Henry did for Arsenal.

Yakubu started both of Boro’s pre-season games in Austria and has looked keen to impress despite speculation linking him with a move away from the Riverside.

It’s worth remembering that the Nigerian is the club’s only proven Premiership goal-scorer, so he could still turn out to be a key man next season.

Aliadiere began Tuesday’s draw up front with Yakubu and there were hints that a potential partnership could flourish given time.

The manager wants more pace in attack than Boro have had in previous seasons and that’s why he’s so excited about Aliadiere, who has pace to burn.

The 24-year-old isn’t quite sure how his new role will pan out, but he’s quite happy to set up the goals for other players if that’s what’s required.

“I think I’m just going to be playing up front with Yak and I just want do my best and if I achieve more assists than goals that’s fine, as long as we win games, that’s all that matters to me.

Aliadiere doesn’t have the most prolific goals to games record but, in his defence, he was never a first choice striker at Arsenal and his other first team experience was as a loan player with West Ham, Celtic and Wolves.